discussion forum

1. Observation of
online forums
Sangwon Lee

2. Why political issue
 My interest
 Flanigan & Zingale (2009)
 Party affiliation as a useful shortcut
 Strong partisanship blindly adopt the positions
Important : how partisans think and communicate
“ Partisanship is the single most important influence
on political opinions and voting behaviors. No model
of voting behavior or public opinion is complete
without some measure of party identification”

3. Why online forum?
 How people interact
 How people make political reasoning
process in this internet era.
 How people express, exchange, and form
their opinions in online sphere.

4. How to analyze?
 Qualitative method
Observation
Writing once a week
 Quantitative method
Content analysis on top-popular postings
(2014.1.1-3.13 // More than 25 replies)

5. Common Aspects
1) Function
 A platform to discuss/share political news
2) Homophily network (McPherson, Smith-
Lovin, & Cook, 2001).
 Like-minded groups

6. Different Aspects
1. Focusing area
Con: Ideological or policy issues >
Election or political figures
Dem: Election or political figures >
Ideological or policy issues

7. What do they focus?
35.3%(12)
52.9%(18)
11.8%(4)
Conservativesforum.com
Election or political
figures
Ideological or
policy issues
Etc

8. What do they focus?
64.4%(29)
31.1%(14)
4.4%(2)
Democraticunderground.com
Election or political
figures
Ideological or policy
issues
Etc

9. Election/ Political figure(Con)
Have their preferred candidates(Paul,Cruz,
Christie..)
But low polarized attitudes toward the figure

10. Election/ Political figure (Con)
“Rand Paul wins CPAC straw Poll”(Replies: 44)

11. Election/ Political figure(Dem)
 Polarized attitudes toward the figure.
 Top 2 postings on the website
“The Why-Hillary in 2016” (Replies: 457)
“Ohhhh now Hillary is the big bad wolf” (Replies: 188)

12. Election/ Political figure(Dem)
“Hillary or not Hillary?” (87 replies)

13. Political Issues(Con)
0
1
2
3
4
Issues
Diplomacy/Security
Immigrant/race
Economy/financial
Express patriotism
Party itself/Party id
Marijuana
 Salient ideological themes: loyalty ,authority, patriotism,
Americanism

14. Political Issues(Dem)
0
1
2
3
4
Issues
Economy/financial
Diplomacy/security
Party issue/id
Climate change
Executive order
Health Care
 Loyalty, authority, patriotism, and Americanism themes
much smaller

15. Other communicative characteristics
DemocraticundergroundConservativeforums
1. Tone
Joking, light, sarcastic
* Republicans are out-
dated, dumb, empty-
headed
1. Tone
Serious, resolute-
determined
* Obama accelerates
the collapse of U.S.
We have to save it
with loyalty.

16. Other communicative characteristics
DemocraticundergroundConservativeforums
2. Image Use 2. Image Use
NO

17. Conclusion
Both:
Political platform
Homophily network (Like-minded groups)
Con : Ideological or policy issues >
Election or political figures
Dem : Election or political figures>
Ideological or policy issues

18. <Election>
Higher polarizing figure for Dem.
<Issue>
Some issues are different: Immigrant (race) issue
& Issues related with patriotism
But, much more different ideological themes
(loyalty, authority, patriotism, and Americanism
much higher in Con)

19. Limitation
 Lack rigorousness
Observation: Depend on my intuition
Data: Restricted to ‘very hot topic’ (25)
: 2014~ (Not representative)
->Hard to generalize!

20. What have I learned?
 What kind of postings gain popularity.
 What users are concerned about
How people actually interact in online forums.
Interesting experience.
Motivate me to study more about U.S. politics.

21. Bartels, L. M. (2000). Partisanship and voting behavior, 1952-
1996. American Journal of Political Science, 44, 35-50.
Bartels, L. M. (2002). Beyond the running tally: Partisan bias in political
perceptions. Political Behavior, 24, 117-150.
Bartels, L. M. (2003). Democracy with attitudes. In M. MacKuen & G.
Rabinowitz (Eds.), Electoral democracy (pp. 48–82). Ann Arbor, MI :
University of Michigan Press.
Campbell, A., Philip, E. C., Warren, E. M., & Donald, E. S. (1960). The
American Voter. Chicago, IL : University of Chicago Press.
Downs, A. (1957). An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York, NY:
Harper and Row.
Flanigan, W. H., & Zingale, N. H. (1999). Political Behavior of the
American Electorate 9th Ed. Washington: Congressional Quarterly
Press.
References

22. Green, D., Palmquist, B., & Schickler, E. (2002). Partisan Hearts
and Minds. New Haven, CT : Yale University Press.
Haidt, J., & Joseph, C. (2008). The moral mind: How five sets of
innate intuitions guide the development of many culture-
specific virtues, and perhaps even modules. The Innate
Mind, 3, 367-391.
Layman, G. C., Carsey, T. M., & Horowitz, J. M. (2006). Party
polarization in American politics: Characteristics, causes, and
consequences. Annual Review of Political Science, 9, 83-110.
Lewis-Beck, M. S., Jacoby, W., Norpoth, H., & Weisberg, H. F.
(2008).The American voter revisited. Ann Arbor, MI:
University of Michigan Press.
McPherson, M., Smith-Lovin, L., & Cook, J. M. (2001). Birds of
a feather: Homophily in social networks. Annual Review of
Sociology, 415-444.
Shively, W. P. (1979). The development of party identification
among adults: Exploration of a functional model. The
American Political Science Review, 1039-1054.

23. Thank You ! ! !